The Replacement
by LadyBug22153
Summary: I wrote another story to go with this called Tying Up Some Loose Ends. Go read it! It pulls this story together, and kinda ends it. This one's good too though. Not for GS shippers though.
1. Chapter 1

Dislaimer: I don not own CSI, nor do I own the characters. I just did this b/c I was bored and was tired of seeing all the pro-G/S fics on here.

Summary: Nick is placed on paid leave for a few months to recover. A replacement is sent in, and causes all sorts of commotion. Not for G/S shipper's. Semi-song-fic in later chapters.

"I'm gonna miss ya Nicky." Warrick was helping Nick clean out his locker.

"Yeah, I'm gonna miss you guys too. But it's only for a month or so. And they said if I feel like coming back sooner, I could." Nick shoved a sweater in his bag.

"I know. But...We almost lost you back there..."

Nick stopped short and took in a deep breath. He exhaled loudly and said, "Don't remind me, huh?" He chuckled, trying to ease the tension. "You guys'll be fine. Besides, I heard they're sending in a replacement from New York to cover me."

"New York, huh?"

Nick nodded. "Yup."

"Why the hell would they send a New Yorker all the way out here?"

Nick shrugged and stuffed more odds and ends into his bag. "I dunno. But I heard she's good."

Warrick raised an eyebrow. "Well, try to enjoy your time off, buddy. Keep in touch, ok?"

"I will. See ya around."

Warrick Gave Nick a friendly pat on the back, and left him in the locker room.

On his way to the break room to get a drink, he was stopped by Grissom.

"Hey Rick, I'm gonna need you to clean out Nick's desk. We've got someone coming in tomorrow and I want it to be neat."

"Sure thing Gris." It pained him to clean out his friend's desk. But it was "Boss' orders". Actually, he wasn't really going to be cleaning it out, so much as he was going to be straightening up. It still sucked, though.

'It's only temporary', he reminded himself. 'In a month or so, Nicky'll be back, and the old team will be together again.'

Warrick decided to bypass the break room and head right to the task of cleaning out Nick's desk. He opened the door to the office and sighed. "It's only temporary..." he said out loud.

The next day, Grissom paged everyone and told them to meet in the conference room. The replacement had arrived.

Sitting in the back of the conference room was the temp. She had dark auburn hair, black framed glasses and bright blue eyes. She was pale and seemed very timid.

"Everyone, I'd like you to meet Carmen Malone. She's going to be covering while Nick is gone."

She raised her hand slightly in a half-hearted wave and said, "Hello everyone..."

"Carmen, I'd like you to meet Warrick, Sara, Catherine, and Greg." Each of them said their greeting quietly, gave a little wave. Grissom continued, "You're going to be working with these guys most often. Our Graveyard shift was recently pulled back together, so we mainly work together. I'll introduce you to the lab techs and Captain Brass later."

Carmen's mouth twitched slightly at the corners as if she were going to smile. This futile attempt was abandoned, and she instead looked up shyly from behind her glasses.

"Looks like she's gonna be loads of fun to work with..." Sara whispered.

Catherine snickered and replied, "Yeah. Looks like we got another Grissom on our hands!"

Sara stifled her laughter, and Grissom shot her a warning glance. She quickly quieted.

"Alright, you guys can get back to work. I just wanted to introduce you to Carmen, and let her know who she was going to work with."

"Ok," everyone said, almost in unison. As they began to file out, Greg hopped up to Sara. "What were you two laughing about in there?"

Sara laughed to herself and replied, "Oh, nothing. Cath just said it seems like we have another Grissom on our hands."

"Oh...I think she seems kinda sweet."

"Greg, you think any female with nice eyes and cute smile is 'kinda sweet'." Sara quipped.

"Not true. You don't have either of those, and I still think you're sweet.

"Ouch..."Warrick said. "I-I think I'm gonna go get some coffee. You comin' Cath?"

"Uh...yeah. That sounds like an idea. Let's go." Catherine and Warrick scurried off to the break room, leaving Sara and Greg alone.

"You know, Greg! You're such an ass!"

"What!"

Sara growled and continued on her way. Greg went and hid in the lab.

Back in the conference room, Grissom sat with Carmen, who was staring at the table.

"I don't think they like me very much, Mr. Grissom..." She fiddled with her peeling nail polish.

"No, no. I'm sure they do. They're just...Still shaken up from what happened." He put a comforting hand on her shoulder. She looked up, her blue eyes shining from lack of sleep. "C'mon. I'll introduce you to the lab techs."


	2. The Commotion Begins

A few days later, Carmen was beginning to fit in a little better. She sure as hell was more confident. She had just finished working on a case with Grissom. The body of a 15 year old boy was found next to an above ground swimming pool after a party. Turned out he and a friend were horsing around, and the boy got thrown over the side where he smacked his head on a rock. The few kids that were still at the party panicked, and told their parents they wanted to leave. When asked where the boy was, they said he had left earlier. All the parents had been intoxicated to some point, so they believed them. It wasn't until the next day when the friend's dad went to mow the lawn that they discovered what happened.

Even though it was obviously an accident, they still needed to know the exact story. So Carmen interviewed each of the kids until one little girl finally told her what happened. Later when she asked the boy's friend, he began crying, saying it was an accident. The girl's story backed him up, but he was still in trouble for not telling anyone. It was up to Captain Brass now to figure out how and what to charge to 14 year old with.

When everything was said and done, Grissom congratulated her on a job well done, and bought them both bagels and coffee for breakfast. Carmen liked Gil Grissom. She thought he was sweet. She was getting along well with everyone, actually. But there was one person she just couldn't seem to feel comfortable with. She never took the time to learn the woman's name. Carmen never did that with people she didn't like. All she could remember about her was that she looked like she got kicked in the teeth by a horse. That gap was the only thing that made her register as a person to her. Other than that, she was just mean. Carmen had done nothing (that she was aware of, anyhow) to offend the gap-toothed CSI. But for some reason, she was nasty to her.

'Oh joy,' Carmen thought, looking at the assignment board. 'I get to work with toothy today.' She looked across the board to see who everyone else was paired with, and smiled inside when she saw she was working with two people today.

When she reached Grissom's office, he was sitting alone, reading something. Occasionally he would look up from the massive book, and examine a bug encased in a glass jar. She almost didn't want to disturb him, but he was the one that paged her. So she knocked on the door.

"Come in!" Grissom called, not taking his eyes off the insect.

"Hey Mr. Grissom. " She said as she entered the darkened office. The only light was coming from a desk lamp, and the computer screen.

"Oh hi Carmen. Please, sit down." He said, motioning to the chair across from him.

"I hope I'm not disturbing you. I wasn't able to get a hold of you before, so I decided to come in a few minutes early." She sat down and looked inside the jar. A large spider was sitting in the center, legs curled against it's sides.

"Actually, " Grissom said, closing the massive book, "That's why I paged you. I wanted you to come in a little early so we could talkabout how things are going for you out here. Besides, you're not disturbing me. I was just looking at this _Nephila Clavipes _I found." He held up the jar for her.

Carmen looked inside, her eyebrow arched. "A golden silk spider?" She lowered her glasses to her nose to get a better look. "I thought they were only found in South America?"

Grissom lowered the jar a little, and looked at her with surprise. "Yeah, they are. That's why I had to catch it." He turned the jar around in his hands, a smile creeping up on his face. After a second, the smile had turned into a look of confusion. "Wait a sec... H-How did you know that? On your resume, it said you were a toxicologist before you decided you wanted to be a CSI."

Carmen smiled sheepishly and glanced up from behind her glasses. "It's...Kind of a hobby of mine. I love studying insects. I have since I was a little girl.I just didn't want to make it a profession." She caught Grissom's gaze just as the smile had begun to return to his face. Carmen had quickly fallen in love with that smile, and wished she got to see it more often.

He went to say something, but was interrupted by a knock on the door. He shook his head, and the smile was gone once again. They both looked towards the door as Sara strode in.

"Hey Gris. And..uh... What's your name again?"

Carmen swallowed a vicious growl that had begun to rise in her throat and said sweetly, "It's Carmen."

"Oh, right..." She gave her the once over and moved to stand by Grissom. "So, I got that paper work from the case the other day. The boyfriend confessed." She handed Grissom a bundle of papers"

"Good. Less work for us. Did you get a copy of this down to Brass?"

Sara nodded, her goony gap-toothed grin threatening to show.

"Good." Gil placed the bundle of papers next to his computer. "I was uh, just about to ask Carmen here how everything is going so far."

Carmen hesitated a moment, thinking about what to say. She couldn't tell Gil she was having a problem with...What was her name? Oh yeah, Sara... Because she was standing right there. She searched her head for something to say, anything at all. "It's...Um...Going ok so far. Nothing really to uh...Complain about." She fidgeted in her seat, pulling at her shirt sleeves.

"You sure everything's ok?" He looked kind of concerned.

"Yeah. Everything's fine." The fidgeting had stopped. "I just haven't been sleeping too well lately, that's all. I'm kind of tired."

"Oh. Alright then. As long as things are going good for you, that's all that matters."

Carmen nodded quickly. She wanted very much to get out of this conversation. After a moment of extremely awkward silence, her wish was granted: Gil's cell phone rang.

He looked at the call ID and answered, "Grissom...Uh-huh...Ok..." He jotted down a note on a piece of paper.

Carmen let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding. 'Saved by the cell phone,' she thought. The saw Sara glaring at her from the corner of her eye. 'Oh jeeze, what did I do now?' She rolled her eyes, her sight falling on Grissom taking notes and talking on the phone. A few seconds later, he hung up.

Both women looked at him with strange faces. Sara's seemed to be anticipation. Carmen's looked extremely nervous, yet with a tinge of relief.

"They've got a body down over at Saratoga Commons. 17 year old girl, tied up in a ditch..." He looked at his list of notes he had just written on the desk. "Visible gun shot wound in the chest..."

"Alright, what are we waiting for?" Sara said happily. "Let's go!"

Grissomshifted the gigantic book on his desk and placed the insect specimen on a shelf. He looked to Carmen and said, "When we get back, I'll let you feed her." He flashed her a smile.

Carmen returned the gesture and replied, "Awesome. I can't wait."

Sara looked at the both of them with an almost...Disgusted look. She then said very dryly, "Maybe I can help you catch it's dinner." Gil raised a curious eyebrow at her.

Carmen realized she was in the middle of something bad, and looked for a quick escape. "I'll go get the kits and put them in the truck," she said quickly. She pushed past Sara and headed towards the lab.

Back in his office Grissom asked, "What the hell was that all about?"

"Don't play dumb with me, Gil. We're past that phase, remember?"

Gil pinched the bridge of his nose. "Sara, she likes insects...So do I. It's a common interest. Doesn't mean anything." He returned the book to it's spot on the shelf.

"Doesn't mean anything! Then what was that doofy smile all about?"

"Sara, _what_ doofy smile?"

Sara huffed and threw her hands in the air. "We'll talk about this later. We have a case to work on." She stormed out of the office and down the hall.

When she reached the truck, Carmen was about to close the back hatch.

"I don't know what you're trying to do, but it's not going to work!" Sara screamed.

"Excuse me?" Carmen turned around calmly.

"You know damn well what I'm talking about! And if I see you trying anything again..." She was now nose to nose with Carmen, grinding her teeth and speaking through the gap. "You'll be out of here so fast, you won't even know what happened." She went to the other side of the truck and flung open the door. She jumped in with such force that the Tahoe shook for a second. Then the door slammed shut.

Carmen stood bewildered for a moment, then closed the hatch. She was going to say something to the psychotic tooth-inator, but caught a glimpse of Grissom in the reflection of the window.

"Hey Mr. Grissom?"

"Carmen, you don't have to add the Mister...But yes?"

"I...Um...Have to talk to you about something."

"Ok, when we get back, we'll talk. I hope nothing's wrong."

"No, no...Just something I have to ask you, that's all."

"Alright. When we feed Shelly later, you'll have my full attention. Right now, we gotta go."

"Ok, no problem."

They both got into the truck, and headed out to the scene.


	3. Stolen Glances and Funny Faces

This chapter includes parts of Lifehouse's You and Me. I don't own the song, or the lyrics, thank you.

* * *

The ride to the scene was quiet, all except for the sounds of Dvorak playing lightly on

the radio. Though Carmen thoroughly knew the notes to the New World Symphony,

another song was playing in her head as she found herself sneaking peeks at Grissom

in the rearview mirror.

_'Cause it's you and me, and all of the people with nothing to do, nothing to prove...And it's you and me, and all of the people and I don't know why, I can't keep my eyes off of you..._

She shook her head and stared out the window. _'No, not again...'_ she thought. She had

begun to fall for a co-worker back in New York. It was horrible. They both liked each

other, but could do nothing about it without starting anything around the office.

Granted he was her partner, and not her supervisor. But it was still awkward. That's

why she had jumped at the opportunity to go to Vegas. She wanted to escape the

developing scandaland hoped to find a new job out west. Not necessarily at the Vegas

crime lab, but far, far away from New York. Now she found herself unable to stop

looking at her temporary supervisor. 'Great...just great.' She pressed her forehead

against the window and stared at the desert passing them by.

Carmen must have zoned out for quite a while because before she knew it, Gil had

pulled up to the scene and parked. It was in the woods, next to an apartment complex.

Residents stood around in their pajamas, whispering questions to each other.

The police were already there when they arrived. Everything was taped off with the

familiar yellow "Police Line Do Not Cross" tape. The police were all bustling about,

asking on-lookers if they had seen anything out of the ordinary.

Carmen grabbed her kit, and headed towards the ditch where the girl lay hog tied. She

pulled out her camera and began to look for anything out of place; foot prints,

pieces of clothing, tire tracks. Anything that could help. When she spotted some

footprints heading away from the body, she knelt down and started snapping photos.

"How long you think she's been here?" Grissom asked David.

"I'd say since about 8 pm last night. ...Looks like she was just thrown here." He pointed

to a man in a hunter green jump suit. "Landscaper found her. He was coming in to

make sure the new sprinkler system was working."

"Anyone say they recognized her?"

David wagged his head. "Nope. Brass was here earlier, asking around. No one said

anything."

Sara had stepped down into the ditch and was looking at the girl. "Hey uh..." She was

talking to Carmen. "There's another bullet wound here in the back of her neck. Did you

get that yet?"

"Yeah, I noticed it before...I was just going to get to it. But I found this." She held up a

tiny zip lock bag with a bullet in it.

"That's good. Did you find anything else?" Grissom asked.

Carmen shook her head. "Not really. Just a few shoe prints." She lowered her head,

talking slow, calculated steps around the hole in the ground.

Suddenly, Carmen stopped. She took a quick snap shot and jumped into the ditch. "Got

something!" She took another picture, and picked up a tiny wad of paper. She looked it

over, then began to unravel it.

"Whaddya got?" Grissom was now crouching down by the ditch, looking over her

shoulder.

"Looks like a ticket. To...The 'Drowning Rats CD Release Party.' " She lowered the

ticket from her face and looked the girl over. She was all in black; black corset, black

leather pants, black platform boots. Her hair was short and spiky with patches of blue

and pink. She also had a pierced nose and lip. "My guess would be she was at that

show."

"You know who the Drowning rats are?" Gil asked.

Carmen shook her head again. "No, but I used to be a metal head...Dressed just like

that when I was her age. The Drowning Rats sound like a metal band to me." She

shrugged. "I knew a lot of people in bands like that." She looked to Sara, who was

fishing through the girl's pockets. "You find an ID yet?"

"Maybe, I've got her wallet." She fingered through the compartments, naming off what

was in it. "Twenty dollars...Few ticket stubs from concerts, movies...A gift card to some

head shop...No ID though." She looked disappointed.

"Well, once we get her cleaned up and get a photo, we'll have to go down to that

venue... See if anyone remembers her. For now, let's just bag what we have and head

back."

"Sounds like a plan to me." Carmen said, bracing herself to climb out. To her surprise,

Gil grabbed her hand and helped her up. Though she was perfectly capable of getting

out by herself, she didn't refuse the help.

Once she was out, she stood there for a moment, holding Grissom's hand. She looked

down at them, gently cupped together. Then her finger twitched. She was getting

nervous. Before it could twitch again, she quickly let go. "Thanks, Gil." She smiled. His

face contorted slightly...He hated his first name. But he didn't say anything to her, like

he normally would have. Instead, he simply replied, "No problem." His lips curled into a

tiny grin. He caught a glimpse of a sparkle in Carmen's eyes as she turned to walk

away from him. Gilcaught himself following her with his eyes, when his gaze fell on

Sara. She was still in the ditch, glaring at him. "Oh shit," he thought.

As he began to walk back towards the ditch, Sara had already made it half way out. He

reached out his hand, offering to help. She swatted it away. "I don't need your _help_,"

she grumbled. Finally making her way out, Sara strode back to the Tahoe taking

large,heavy steps.

Grissom rubbed his eyes and rolled his head over his shoulders. He was going to hear

it when they got back to the lab.

The ride back was even more quiet then the ride there. There were no soft classical

notes floating through the air. The only sound was Sara's angry breathing.

Carmen sat in the back seat, holding tightly onto her camera. She kept telling herself

to look at the floor, but she couldn't help it. Her eyes shifted back and forth between

Sara and Grissom. Something was wrong, and she had the sinking feeling she had

caused it.

'Just look at the damn floor!' she told herself.

After a few minutes of studying the grains of sand in the rug, and fidgeting with the

nobs and buttons on her camera, Carmen's eyes began to wander. First to the back of

the chair in front of her. 'No, no...Don't look.' She kept telling herself. Her eyes didn't

listen.

They drifted up to the steering wheel, watching as Grissom drove. She sat there,

watching for what seemed like hours before her eyes traveled again. Then they shifted

to the windshield. 'Damnit, don't look!' Finally, her eyes came to rest on the rearview

mirror. Even through his sunglasses, Carmen could see Gil was annoyed. His eyebrows

were furrowed, his gaze held intensely on the road.

_Something about you I can't quite figure out..._

The only time Grissom looked elsewhere, was to change lanes. Then they did

something Carmen wasn't expecting at all. He glanced upward, into the rearview.

Her brain told her to look away, but her eyes stayed put. He looked back towards

the road before she had to do anything. 'Whew...That was close.' But she still sat

there, looking into the rearview.

His eyes flicked up again. This time, they didn't look away so quickly. It seemed he was

looking back at her. His dark sunglasses made her unsure.

_I don't know where to go from here..._

Wanting to ease the awkward feeling in the air, Carmen did something completely

childish. She crossed her eyes, and stuck out her tongue. When Gil didn't respond, she

made an even weirder face... Just to make sure he hadn't seen her. But his

eyebrowarched curiously, and a smile had cracked on his face. 'Uh-oh.'

_It's you and me, and all of the people...And I don't know why..._

"What's so funny, Gris?" Sara sneered.

"Nothing...I was just about to sneeze. ...it went away though."

_'Smooth Gil, real smoooootttthhh...'_ he thought to himself.

Carmen stifled a giggle in the back seat. _'Slick move there, Gil.'_ She thought.

They caught each other's gaze in the rearview once more. They both were holding

back laughter, this time. Sara just grunted and ignored them both.

_I can't keep my eyes off of you..._

_'And to think,'_ Carmen thought to herself as she laid her head on the window,

_'Everyone in NYC said this would be boring...'_


End file.
